5 - Shape memory polymer composites: nanocomposites and corrugated structures

Abstract

Despite all impressive characteristics of shape memory polymers (SMPs), the most noticeable drawback for SMPs is their poor elastic properties, which impedes the applications of SMPs when large recovery stress is required, for example, in actuators. To overcome such limitations, a variety of reinforcements are used in SMP composites. Needless to say, recent developments in the fabrication of nanoscale materials, such as graphene, graphite, carbon nanotubes, and clay, also increased academic and industrial interests on using these nanomaterials as reinforcement in other materials including SMPs. In this chapter, we first deal with modeling and homogenization of SMP nanocomposites with perfectly dispersed graphene nanoplatelets. In the second part of this chapter, numerical homogenization of coiled carbon nanotube-reinforced SMP nanocomposites is carried out to reduce the possible damage that could be generated in interphases of the SMP and inclusions. In contrary to the first two parts, which were focused on enhancement of the force recovery at the material level, at the third part, we examine thermomechanical behavior SMPs reinforced by corrugated polymeric sections to enhance the structural force recovery capacity of the SMP composite.